How often have we heard that portraying Obama as out of touch with the American people constitutes a racially tinged and undertoned use of Otherness?
Just the other day Rick Perry was accused of invoking Otherness when he said Obama had been privileged:
Rick Perry, seeking to paint President Obama with an “otherness” brush from most Americans, described him in terms that aren’t usually used to describe him: “Privileged.”
So what to make of this brutal takedown of Obama by none other than Chris Matthews (who by the way had called on Obama to release his birth certificate).
If this isn’t an attempt to use Otherness, then what is? (h/t Verum Serum):
I don’t have a sense that he’s ever had a meeting. I hear stories that you will not believe, not a single phone call since the last election. They don’t call, he never calls, that’s the message. Members of Congress, I keep asking, when did you hear from him last? He doesn’t like their company.
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Why do we have to hear it from Matthews? Aren’t there any Republicans in Congress? My eardrums are bursting from the howls of outrage from these poindexters. Not!
The fact that we are hearing it from Matthews, whose “leg tingles” at the very mention of Obama are legendary [if not worthy of mention in Krafft-Ebbing’s work], is in itself full of portent. It is possible that someone in his chain of command is realizing that the bet they made may not pay off as planned. Thus an attempt to disengage to a certain extent.
As far as hearing it from Republicans? Never going to happen. If you have been watching politics for the last decade or so, the Institutional Republicans will never attack their “dear friends and colleagues across the aisle”. That would be ne Kulturny and too much like the Conservatives in their own party that they are normally venting their hostility on.
Subotai Bahadur
If “Otherness” means malignant narcissism, we have long ago identified this character fault. Writing today in the WaPo, Scott Wilson says Prez Zero is a policy wonk who has trouble with people. The closing on the article is unbelievable candor.
Toast
It’s been ‘known’ for quite some time now – Joe Scarborough alluded to it some time back, and even got Mike Brezinski to admit she had been hearing about it too. It’s not just missing meetings and not calling supporters – it’s way deeper than that.
2012 CANNOT COME SOON ENOUGH. Even Chris Matthews knows it.
True – there have been a number of articles written about what is wrong with the man. After November (which I agree, can’t get here soon enough), the books will start to come out.
One thing I am pretty sure of – few presidents have been the subject of extensive research, even decades after their terms have passed (Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Reagen). I have a feeling O will be added to the list. Revelations about this man are going to stream out years from now.
None of it good, either.
DocWahala
Note to self:
“Buy another bookshelf – won’t need toilet paper for years to come”.
Errrrr, MikA – dang typos.
Why should Obama call anyone? He’s given them their orders. The only call should be when someone calls to let him know that his will has been done, and ask for more orders.
Ah, but Chrissy admits it: “Why are we in this fight with him?” “Give us orders” MSDNC and Chrissy are as in the tank as ever.
It is rather sickening. “Give us orders” – that’s the difference between us and them, him and me.
I just saw how other commenters noticed that “Give us orders” remark. I had just pointed this out to a family member. So weird. This is what frightens me about the Left. And Chris Matthews is a media guy at MSNBC. I was imagining if I could see a Bill O’Reilly saying this seriously – or a Sean Hannity or a Rush Limbaugh. I couldn’t. I could imagine the latter two strongly supporting a candidate but this “awaiting orders” type remark is beyond the pale. Now this is something scary but true.
“Writing today in the WaPo, Scott Wilson says Prez Zero is a policy wonk who has trouble with people.”
This is ludicrous. Let me make the correction: President Obama likes to think of himself as a policy wonk … but there is nothing to back this up.
He just likes to make speeches.
He likes to think he likes policy wonk stuff … but he can’t be bothered with the details … let Nancy and Harry & Co. come up with the tedious details.
To think that the one asset that Barack Obama pointed to during the 2008 campaign was his “ability to get people together in a room.” Unfortunately, we all inferred that this meant he helped the people in the room to come to some sort of resolution, but the truth seems to be that after getting everybody in the room, Obama will run off to the links for a round of golf.
This is all about the Democrats beginning to go for an LBJ moment to replace Bambi with Hillary.
The pressure will become even more intense than it was on Johnson in early 1968. Will it succeed? Who knows. People who potentially stand in the way of the Clintons have a habit of dying….
The Democrats probably really don’t want to repeat the LBJ/HHH begots Richard Nixon 1968 fiasco. Of course, after reading how Romney wiped out all his (and his staff’s) e-mails from his time as MA Governor, I could see the possibility a WaterGate redux in our future.
It’s telling that although Chris Matthews has been “hearing stories you will not believe”, for some reason he deliberately chooses not to report these stories. I can’t believe Matthews started hearing them last weekend. Don’t the people have a right to know, Chris Matthews?
[…] PROF. JACOBSON: Why is Chris Matthews portraying Obama as “The Other”? […]
[…] at Legal Insurrection. Transcript at News […]
I caught a comment (somewhere) that asked the question, “what is Chris Matthews’ obsession with JFK ?
Quick answer, Chris Matthews’s man-crush of a biography, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.
Those who subscribe to cults of personality swing between tingling and crushing disappointment.
It’s natural to be disappointed in Obama, because he’s done badly (and has bad ideas anyway).
But merely being disappointed is not a sign of proper disappointment. It really matters why one is disappointed. If Matthews’ disappointment is natural, it’s only natural in the way cultists are disappointed when their Dear Leader fails to wow them with stunning exploits of wisdom.
Opponents of Obama are not my allies if their opposition is one of disappointed utopianism. This kind of “enemy of my enemy” is no friend if he merely turns his eager eye to some new putative miracle worker.
Disappointed utopians are really the only kind at all. They imagine the problem is the objects of their hope, rather than the unrealistic hope they attach to those they deem the vanguards.
So another utopian wakes up from the dream. Who cares, unless the idiot can stay awake and keep his rosy glasses off his face?